Shine On You Crazy Diamond

A few years ago, at the start of a new school year, one of my roommates asked me what my greatest pet peeve was, regarding roommates. I immediately told her, "Passive-aggressive notes." I explained that I've had roommates who, rather than discussing their issues openly or privately with other roommates, would detail their annoyances on the whiteboard for everyone to see. Usually, these notes would contain positive and friendly words and phrases, while conveying massive irritation at the same time. One example went something like this:

Someone keeps turning up the thermostat. This costs us lots of money! So that we all can benefit and save money, please keep it down to 65 degrees. Thanks! :)

That "someone" was me. For all I know, though, there could have been more roommates turning up the thermostat. Anyway, to solve the problem, I offered to pay more than my share of the utilities so that it wouldn't cost extra for my roommates, and I would still be comfortable with the temperature in the apartment. Win-Win, right? Well, the next thing I knew, there was duct tape covering the knob on the thermostat (which, of course, was set at 65). I didn't see a smiley face this time, though.

These notes were especially irritating to me if they resulted in a series of written responses on the whiteboard, which played out to be some kind of bizarre fight without any physical interaction. You'd have to see it to believe how ridiculous it was.

I've often wondered how this behavior of passive-aggressive notes and whiteboard fights became appropriate. After some time, I think I get it. I think the problem with passive-aggressiveness is that many of the people we know, especially women, try too hard to be nice. They try to be nice, even when they are fuming with rage. Couple that with a disinclination to ever seem contentious and an inexperience with confrontation, and you get bottled up anger, that blows up pretty bizarrely. So, what's the solution?

Don't be so nice!

Several months ago, I read a book called Only When I Laugh, by Elouise Bell. Elouise is a former BYU professor of English. I purchased her book after seeing her give a speech in Salt Lake after being honored with an award (for being an awesome Mormon Feminist...or something like that). I was impressed by her wisdom, optimism, and attitude, and felt that she would be a great role model for how I wish my feminism to fuel my faith. Heck, I even named one of my hens after her :)

Back to her book, though. I particularly liked her chapter, "When Nice Ain't So Nice." I'll be quoting it a lot. In it, she begins by saying that niceness can mask the truth, and can even be dangerous. Often times, con artists, child molesters, and wife beaters appear nice and friendly to their neighbors and community, even so much that people rush to their defense, despite the testimonies of their victims. The fact is, niceness is commonly mistaken for virtuousness.

She relates that while C.S. Lewis believed courage to be the one virtue that protects all other virtues, she believed niceness to corrupt all other virtues. She claims, "Niceness edits the truth, dilutes loyalty, makes a caricature of patriotism. It hobbles Justice, short-circuits Honor, and counterfeits Mercy, Compassion, and Love." She further states, " Nice flies under false colors, wants the reputation of the gentle dove without the wisdom of the wise serpent. It is the Great Imposter, having none of the power of Virtue but seeking the influence thereof. Nice is neither kind nor compassionate, neither good nor full of good cheer, neither hot nor cold. But being puffed up in its own vanity, it is considerably more dangerous than luke-warmth."

Considering the damage niceness can do to our virtues, we might imagine that where it is encouraged and given over-emphasis, there will be negative results. In discussing a dominatly authoritative parenting style, where children are expected to be obedient and submissive without question, Elouise Bell explains what psychologist Alice Miller terms the "poisonous pedagogy." "The 'poisonous pedagogy' teaches children, in other words, to be 'nice.' It demands that children not resist the status quo, not take any direct action against whatever injustices are going down. Thus, it indirectly but inevitably encourages covert action, manipulation, passive-aggression, duplicity, and denial."

Likewise, Bell believes that niceness can do damage to our very souls, if we let it replace our authentic virtues and sense of Self. She compares the journey of self-discovery we each go through and the impending threat of niceness this way:

Imagine a mother, a Queen if you like, who awakens from the sleep that follows childbirth to discover that her child has been abducted, carried away. At first there are some signs of the child - a cry down a long corridor, a blanket woven for the baby and discovered on the lawn, perhaps a scent of baby's breath on the night air. These eventually stop. Time passes. The mother searches night and day. And every now and then she hears from the child - a lisping voice over the telephone line, garbled with static; torn parts of a hand-written note; sometimes even a little gift, sent with love. And the mother continues to hunt for the child, to follow clues, and to send the child, by whatever means - on the phone in the fleeting moments permitted, by thought transference, by prayer - all the love and support she can muster, as the search continues. 

Now imagine that, in the midst of these labors, the mother is repeatedly beset by concerned people - most prominently the Queen Mother and her consort - who urge her to break off her search, who try to press a different child on her, insisting that this one is much "nicer" than her own, scolding her, saying she is selfish, willful, possibly even crazy to go on with her search. If the opposition is persistent, the Queen may eventually come to believe she is crazy, to doubt that there ever was such a child, to cease following the clues, to grow deaf to the voice on the other end of the phone. To give up the search. Devotees of the cult of niceness abandon the True Self and promote the False Self, the self that psychologist John Bradshaw describes this way: "You pretend a lot. You gauge your behavior by how it looks - by the image you believe you're making, You wear a mask, play a rigid role, and hide your emotions. You say you're fine when you're hurt or sad. You say you're not angry when you are." 

I've come to a lot of hard realizations lately in my journey to uncover who I really am, and what I want, independent of the world around me. Some of these realizations have come as a surprise. Through all of it, I know that the worst thing I can do with my life is to hide my reality, or dismiss it as being insignificant, or crazy. In many ways, I'm becoming more comfortable to show myself to the world. It may be a cliche' to say, "This above all: to thine own self be true," but Shakespeare nailed it!  


It's difficult to be advised that, as a woman, I should always seek to be nice, soft, and feminine. For the most part, I don't feel that that is who I am (or who I want to be). Personally, I've always felt much more compelled by Friedrich Nietzche's call to reject niceness and "become hard": 

"Why so hard?" the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. "After all, are we not close kin?"
Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers?
Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so much denial, self-denial, in your hearts? So little destiny in your eyes?
And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable ones, how can you one day triumph with me?
And if your hardness does not wish to flash and cut through, how can you one day create with me?
For all creators are hard. And it must seem blessedness to you to impress your hand on millennia as on wax.
Blessedness to write on the will of millennia as on bronze -- harder than bronze, nobler than bronze. Only the noblest is altogether hard.
This new tablet, O my brothers, I place over you: Become hard!